Okay, here is my opinion/rant/load of *******s depending on your point of view.
Firstly, I have to lay my cards on the table, I was all for Pochettino being our manager. He seemed to tick all the boxes:
*PL experience
*Good record in the transfer market on a budget
*Players seemed to love playing for him
*Played simple attacking football that worked
*Developed and used young players
I thought the early signs were positive. I thought pre-season we looked good. I thought the signings in the summer were unspectacular, but appeared to be addressing the weakest areas of the squad (leadership in defence = Fazio, solid left-back = Davies, defensive cover = Dier). I had no idea about Stambouli but from what i read and saw on YouTube he sounded/looked like a decent acquisition.
This is where things start to just mystify me and things have come to a head with the last few performances, where IMO we've seen a consistently low level of performance, akin to the end of the Ramos era, start/end of the Santini era/end of the Hoddle era, where we just look rudderless and clueless.
The thing for me is that ultimately, football is a simple game. It's complicated by fools. I'm sure that's a quote from someone. Whatever. It's true. I thought Poch played a simple game at Southampton. A good manager looks at what he has and looks at how to get the most out of it. Redknapp did it. Sherwood did it. Jol did it. Our squad is far from ideal, but ultimately, Sherwood showed you could get a remarkably consistent string of results out of it, without even getting the chance to put his own stamp on the squad.
It really wound me up that AVB wouldn't pick the best players in the squad and try and get the most out of them. Instead, we had Ade on the bench, Eriksen in and out the team. Lamela wasn't played, even when he wasn't fit and the whole Lloris not getting picked straight away thing wound me up too.
But Poch is guilty of the same thing. Okay, Rose has done well this season, but he's not a solid defender. Never has been. I thought the whole point of buying Davies was that he offered that solidity in defence we'd been sorely lacking. Our Europa League team looks a lot more solid defensively and partly that is down to the defensive unit just being a bit more tactically aware and solid looking.
Just get him in the team. Similarly to Fazio. Supposedly this is who Poch brought in to provide the kind of organisational skills seen at Sevilla. But he's not in the team. Now we come to Vertonghen. He's our best defender when on form. He's a good footballer. He's not in the team - why? It beggars belief.
I also agree that he's a flawed player, but Dembele is our best midfielder. He works hard, he wins the ball back, shields the defence and is able to hold onto it in tight situations. Stambouli looked very solid next to him, but neither get picked other than in the cup games, where it seems to work, but they're never played in the league.
I like the fact that Mason is playing, but Capoue has shown poor form for quite a few games, and as a pair, Capoue and Mason just do not provide the protection our defence needs!
There are so many decent players not in the team.
Aaron Lennon I think is a great pro and he had a great pre-season under Poch. He looked very dangerous and his work ethic seemed to fit right into Poch's pressing tactics. Yet come the season he's dumped from the squad - why?
Holtby was another that shone in pre-season IMO and seemed well suited to Poch's all-action style. He's also a big character and a good asset in terms of the mentality of the squad - yet he gets bombed out in the summer?
I just don't get these decisions.
When the team line-ups were announced versus Stoke, the team looked so average on paper. I'm all for young players getting a chance, but bunging 3 of them into the starting XI against a tough Stoke outfit when under pressure doesn't smack to me of a manager giving youth a chance, it smacks to me of a manager desperately trying to curry favour with the crowd who are turning against him. We looked so much weaker than we could have been with the likes of Vertonghen, Davies, Dembele, Lamela, Adebayor in the team.
I don't think you can point the finger at Baldini for this mess. Sherwood showed you can get great football out of Eriksen and Adebayor. We've seen the best of Chadli this season and Lamela has shown signs of potential too.
Ultimately, these attacking players need to receive the ball quickly on the transition to be effective. Last season Sherwood set the team up to get the ball quickly into Eriksen and Adebayor. It worked.
As much as people got on Bentaleb's back, he's an intelligent and tenacious young lad who likes to play the simple game. Football is a simple game and its actually a skill to play the quick give and go.
Why's he not being used again? Again i just don't get it.
Poch far from playing the simple game, getting players to feel comfortable and play their natural game, it all feels a bit like AVB where you can almost feel the fact that the players are thinking all the time. Instead of playing a simple, quick pass, it's almost like the players are struggling to remember instructions and over thinking things, playing under pressure.
It's painful to watch.
I really think Poch is over complicating things and over thinking things and it shows out on the pitch.
It's really basic stuff, I play football every week and it's a really simple game, even to set up basic formations and defend as a unit. It's not rocket science.
If you look at Koeman, he's doing a good job at Southampton as he's not tried to change everything. he's obviously said to the players, you had a great season last season, just keep doing what you're doing. He's added some good buys in Tadic and Pelle and the rest is history.
We had a very good win ratio under Sherwood last season, things were not as bad as people made out. It was just an inexperienced team so we came unstuck against the top 4/5 teams, but we beat everyone else fairly comfortably. It honestly just needed tweaking but instead well....we've gone backwards alarmingly fast.
The body language of the players is poor and they're clearly not enjoying things out there. I don't think anyone is!
The thing is that I can't see anyway back from such poor displays. I can't see Poch turning it round. I really want him to, but it does have that bleak look about it and the quotes we are now hearing from Poch seem to suggest he's at a bit of a loss with it all.
